Review: Gojira at the Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton

Mark Woodward reviews metal band Gojira's five star gig at the Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton.

Gojira

I am fast running out of superlatives which do justice to the sheer awesomeness of a Gojira gig.

Standing agog as the four-midable Frenchmen pulverise the senses with their bowel-shuddering grooves, it always elicits the same question: Can you ever really improve on perfection?

If their triumphal trouncing of the Slade Rooms is anything to go by then Gojira are giving it a right good go.

In the flesh, the band have no peer when it comes to doing ‘heavy’. And they have the riffs (and the song titles) to back it up.

The opening bombardment of Explosia, Flying Whales, Backbone and, most colossally, The Heaviest Matter of the Universe, had the pit in a state of frenzy as heads banged, hair flailed, fists pumped and horns were raised in unison.

As the temperature continued to soar, frontman Joe Duplantier observed: “Our dressing room was freezing so we thought Wolverhampton would be really cold... but it’s very hot now!’’

He turned the heat up further by asking the crowd, perhaps tongue in cheek: “So, is Wolverhampton in Birmingham?!’’

Their response was not for publication in a family newspaper but they were considerably vocal in the belief that the Black Country is more metal than it is among the Brummie brethren.

L’Enfant Sauvage, the title track of the band’s magnum opus, and the earth-moving Toxic Garbage Island threatened to shake the venue to its very foundations as Gojira continued their uncompromisingly brutal tech/death assault.

In fact, the only time Monsieur Joe looked in danger of being knocked out of his stride was when a punter went flying over the front barrier during Oroborus and cracked his head on the ground. Joe looked somewhat concerned and briefly broke off from singing to check there was no damage done.

Gojira are destined to conquer the world, where they will play much bigger venues to far larger crowds, which makes the 80 minutes spent in this intimate little corner of Wolverhampton all the more special.